Aftermath Insurgencies
by CN7
Summary: How does civilization recover from slaughter? By scrambling to survive, finding more problems, and picking more fights to solve them. I came into the world similarly-screaming and making a rotten mess. My parents would probably agree. They lived it, and war costs maybe a little too much. At least I have the option to grow old because of them. Not everyone does. (Post-reapers)
1. Chapter 1

_**12 September 2186, Coalition Medical Facility, Westminster, London/Earth,**_ _ **2 Days Post Crucible Fire**_

Whistles, soft bells, low hums, and a steady set of clicks encased the constant buzz of urgent voices. Once white curtains coated in lairs of ash and dust. Dimmed lights flickered and crackled, and the young woman wondered if they were really useful at all, stealing power from the emergency dynamo that could have been diverting power to more vital recourses.

Like more life support systems.

Even now I can hear her grumbling, _When was the last time people even needed backup generators on this side of London? One hundred years ago? Weren't they specifically made for colonies nowadays?_

But back then, right after the Reapers fell, the whole galaxy needed them, and they all stepped back in time to survive.

I'm sort of glad I grew up more technologically resilient.

Equipment had fallen to cheap and rustic, and much of it could not be used without manual assistance. Most looked makeshift, raw, and constructed from what was on hand or could be scavenged. No such thing as a one-hundred percent accurate incision or medical dosage existed anymore. Hell, they didn't even have nearly the proper pharmaceuticals in stock for all of the wounded and ill, and I'm not quite sure anyone on Earth did. Apparently one of the officers had put the requisition in the day before, and the Alliance had sworn to send as much aid as possible to this outpost, but I'm skeptical to believe she relied on that promise. Just like I'm not quite sure how much faith she could squeeze out for the faulty station VI that never seemed to remember whether it was still active or which medications were needed on a patient-by-patient basis.

She once told me she almost emptied an entire cartridge of her Locust into it as the human hand became solely responsible for all those lives. And somewhere deep down - in spite of all of her aptitude - I think that scared her.

The sting of antiseptic and the metallic stench of blood lashed at her nose. More spilt on the floor from behind the curtains and in the bustling corridors. For safety's sake someone needed to rid the grime from those halls. But there was no telling who or when the chance would come because almost every able-bodied person in this little, torn up hospital worked towards the benefit of those lives left to save. At that point, a fine line could be drawn between expendable comforts and hygiene.

Outside remained no less bleak than the field hut she found herself wandering. No sun. Black coated what was once clear as the blue in her eyes, the blue in my eyes. Dry and suffocating and cold, crops sparse, water contaminated, history decimated. Consequences would be dire on this poor world's surface.

The Reapers left them with this. Not a victory to celebrate, but a genocide where every species would search for and pick up broken pieces. None of those people deserved to die, none of the children and families deserved to be stranded, starving in the frost. They deserved so much more - prosperity, the pursuit of happiness and a better life.

And Miranda Lawson made sure I knew it.

But not much potential could be left on a galaxy scarred and burnt beyond recognition. And then, the entire facility - the entire city - reeked of death and the air tasted of despair.

Little distinction could be made between soldier and civilian, officer and enlisted, human and alien in this place. Separation between levo and dextro people became one notable precaution so there could be fewer medication errors in an already flustered environment. But they all equally slipped through the staffs' fingers.

Miranda possessed no medical doctorate either, not technically even a nurse. Oh, she could certainly pick up a tourniquet and lend her services like she had under fire. And yes, she once instilled life after death, but not by her own personal doing. Credit belonged to underlying, deceased staff. Her medical prowess grew from hands-on field work, and composed itself of fact checks from textbooks that hardly applied to the relics in supply.

The illusion of kissing scraped knees, cradling swollen wrists, and rubbing pinched fingers couldn't last forever.

Experience in any capacity became neccessary to survival, and Miranda prized no quality above efficiency.

Except maybe . . . .

Seared meat and tubes. It churned her stomach because she knew exactly what lied below all those damp, mummified dressings, and she suddenly had a heartbeat to match the one on the monitor - one of the few available for priority patients.

 _You need to be here. Want to be here, Miranda_ , she reminded herself once more and took a deep, audible breath, alerting the aid at the bedside.

"Ms. Lawson," Chief Reed greeted with a strained smile, and scaned the chart in his lap for the umpteenth time. Probably in his mid-fifties with stalks of curly brown hair, a good man and exactly the attentive nurse Miranda wanted watching her loved ones. "The commander's fever spiked a few hours ago. It's down now. All things considered, he had a better morning than I would have predicted."

Miranda snorted. "More like Shepard didn't fall, die, or need emergency surgery."

Not like the day before.

Not like when she watched the third Citadel scouting party rush him into the operating room. Charred and bloody and crushed, armor melted, casing chipped away from the flesh. Not like when they finished breaking away the bone, when she watched his eyes open and close blindly in white hot anguish.

The chief's grin grew wry, and he stepped forward to press a thermometer to Shepard's temple. The results still made her uneasy.

"Slept through most of it, too," he said.

Green would become a treasured sight on many homeworlds in years to come. But then, even if one remained milky and unseeing beneath a bandage, Miranda could be satisfied with the tiny glimpse she could still scavenge because they were warm and vibrant flecks backed by honey and earth and life. Unfocused and drained, a smile resided in Shepard's eye when he saw her dallying at the side of his bed.

Drunken and weighted, Shepard glibly picked up his remaining bandaged hand to wave. If he could speak, he would have just about gushed and simultaneously griped because he suddenly seemed very inconvenienced by the tube in his mouth - the one helping him breathe. His fleeting frustration passed, however, as Miranda smiled softly and pressed her lips to the center of his burning forehead.

The nurse's footsteps halted at the curtain, and a coat of sarcasm surrounded the genuine warmth. "Yeah, I'll be right back. Give you kids a bit of space before I have to dope your boy back up with his prescription."

"Thank you, Reed," Miranda whispered as the curtains swished, and backed away just enough to address Shepard. "How's the pain?"

An absolutely ridiculous question, but worry got the better of her. Loathe as she was to admit it. And the feeling did not dissipate for a second.

Shepard's lip twitched up as he ground his incisors down on his trach and gnawed away at the plastic case. He looked a bit surprised when he realized that yes, she was actually speaking to him, and no, he could not chew through the breathing tube. He merely shrugged and lolled his head from side to side. In spite of the fact he had been carried in half-dead less than twenty hours before, low on blood, skin, and oxygen; Miranda found comfort in his abandon, without his Atlas posture.

"Next time you want to take a break, let's not fight through hell and blow up half the galaxy first," she teased, easing her way into a seat at his side. "We'll just slip away with some false IDs and steal government secrets for currency. Much easier, don't you think?"

Shepard blinked heavily, exhausted, but his stare did not stray from her.

Miranda missed the rally of wits. She wished he did not need the tube, but at least she had found him.

"Yeah, those meds hit the spot. Didn't they? Well, you look better than you did a couple hours ago," she lied.

Minuscule improvements were visible, and he remained too incoherent to thrash about. So Miranda supposed she could not be a complete liar. She desperately wanted to touch him. But with his skin so checkered beneath his bandages, fear of excess petting causing him unnecessary harm kept her mostly at bay. Until she discovered a bare patch on his bicep, not quite the right temperature - feverish and dry.

"The relay is still offline. I imagine when we have the resources, we'll fix the sphere. As I've heard, that's what's broken. Everyone is going to need it to get home. Dextro crops don't grow very well on Earth, or any crops now," she mused, spilling out a brief update inspite of Shepard's level of awareness. "Some surviving businessmen have thrown in their hats and hired civilians to coordinate with the Alliance's reconstruction efforts. Don't know how anyone is going to be paid. Credits are pretty useless now. There's a lot of rubble to clear from ground zero, outwards. The Citadel is basically silent. Tensions are going to start running a little high down here."

Her eyes snapped up when she caught herself. A trace of disappointment in Shepard's singular gaze, and she instantly felt regret.

"I'm sorry. That's not very positive thinking, is it? The Krogan and Turian are actually getting along best, and they've been more than happy to do some heavy-lifting. That's all you, Shepard," she said, squeezing his arm. "The rest of it . . . ."

The massacred and stranded people, the destroyed soil and water supplies, the obliterated history and infrastructure, the bureacratic walls masked by temporary peace, future political ramifications, their missing friends.

And because some secrets initially suck and have to grow on you like a leech before you can cope with them - her own, ever-growing, personal dilemma.

"We'll figure it out," she swore. "We always do."

She delicately ran her fingers across tuft of exposed auburn on the left side of his head, careful not to tug because moving skin anywhere near a burn feels like grinding sandpaper against soft tissue. She swore Shepard would be at least a little upset if - _when_ \- the doctors removed the bandages, and he realized he disintegrated a good chunk of his hair.

So Miranda kissed his forehead again because she didn't do it often enough and he still circled really low in the drain, and said into his unblown eardrum, "You're one of the most beautiful persons I've ever met."

She almost laughed aloud when she saw the emotion brimming in his good eye because high as a kite, Shepard grew incredibly flighty on medication. But Miranda really did mean it. So selfless and good, and when Miranda looked at him and saw the future, it didn't frighten her in quite the same way it used to.

A new type of agony replaced the old, as things often go.


	2. Chapter 2

Salarians lack the ability to dream. Their brains actually remain in a constant state of processing subconscious information and events throughout the day, where they are able to fall into atony without an actual REM cycle. Maybe that's why everything they do is so fast-paced.

I imagine an exhausted salarian falls into a state between lucid dreaming and hallucinations.

Besides perhaps the hanar, most other species are quite susceptible to the voices in their heads during semi-unconsciousness. To turians, a very auditory species, this is quite literally sound. Asari dredge up lots of imaginary cosmos—some ideas not even their own. Drell solipsism is its own memory monster.

Humans in particular seem to have a nasty habit of falling into all three patterns while we sleep. Scientifically speaking, our minds spend hours at a time rotating through a cycle to synthesize an entire series of images, noises, thoughts, and memories. And for a stressed or very young mind these lovely collaborations can be congruent with a completely terrifying psychedelic trip.

Night terrors.

My father had them. I had them. On more than one occasion I sat up in my bed, clinging to my stuffed toy, screaming for my mother to come to my rescue.

* * *

Cross-legged on the edge of her bed, more than a little exhausted, Miranda sat halfway through a request for an emergency docking slip on Illium when EDI made her omnipresence known.

"Miss Lawson," she chimed in a voice so silky and smooth, it felt like she'd been wrapped in satin and comfort. "Your presence is requested on the bridge."

"I'll be right up." Miranda stood and stretched her arms above her head. The fatigue in her legs washed away instantaneously, but a set of cracked ribs on her left popped and screamed in protest. Averse as she was to the notion, it required all her willpower to avoid buckling.

So long as she didn't make a fuss, Miranda remained sure she could avoid Dr. Chakwas for at least another full shift rotation. Chakwas had so many other crew members to watch over and treat-Hadley's shattered leg, Miss Chamber's burns and shock, Kasumi's fractured skull, Tali's infection, Patel's ruptured spleen-that she hadn't quite taken care of those able to still effectively stand and speak. In retrospect Miranda was quite lucky.

Or at least, that's the impression she had given her commanding officer. He likely hadn't seen her naked since before they hit the Omega-4 relay.

The mess stood vacated during what would normally be Alpha shift's third meal of the day. Only three crewmen loitered in Gardner's territory, vacating a fabricator of its contents. Patel, Rolston, and Goldstein nodded in greeting and the latter actually grinned.

"Care to join us for a bite, Miss Lawson?" she chirped, waving an empty plate above her head.

Miranda smiled with a flood of warmth in her chest. It didn't make the ache that plagued her heart all day go away, but certainly soothed the pain. "Thank you, Jenny, but I'm needed on deck."

"If you're done in time, let me know. You and the ground team deserve a swanky dinner after pulling our asses out of the fire."

The other two murmured their resounding thanks as Rolston discarded his burden, took three big steps forward, threw his arms around her, and squeezed. The breath in her lungs disappeared, and Miranda could swear on any holy text something important snapped above her waist. Uncomfortable as she was, though, she held little contempt for his gesture.

He brought her to an arms length and said, "I get to see my daughter again because of you."

Miranda blinked, and suddenly felt as though Jack really had smeared the walls with her body. No longer did breath allude her solely from physical damage. A lump formed in her throat and she opened her mouth to offer something. Anything.

Then the entire ship shuddered.

A flanged stream of turian expletives were flung from the main battery, and half of them completely flooded Miranda's translator with misinterpretations. Klaxons clanged across the bulkheads and bounced from the grooves on deck, startling off-hours and injured crewmen alike awake for standby.

"EDI," Miranda called out as she charged to the elevator, winded, and hammered away at the button for the CIC. Inside a cramped metal box, she suddenly despised the alarm as it pounded its way beneath her skull.

The responding synthetic voice remained cool and collected in the midst of the sudden madness. "Yes, Miss Lawson?"

"Status report," she demanded with a clipped edge to her tone. "What the bloody hell just hit us?"

"Debris from a nearby frigate has collided with _Normandy's_ anterior hull, aft of the cargo hold due to-."

"We collide with debris constantly. It's supposed to ricochet off our barriers, not split the ship in half!"

"Correct. However, _Normandy's_ shields are not at optimal capacity with only twenty percent output due to static-electrical buildup in the mass effect drive core. Remaining power has been rerouted into the mass effect fields covering _Normandy's_ hull breaches," EDI relayed.

"Even ten percent is sufficient for something," Miranda snapped because she knew from personal experience a mass effect field acts as a fly swatter for incoming projectiles, and the only property capable of breaking them is a constant heat build up.

Heat built from sources like laser canons.

Laser canons attached to hostile warships.

Which meant they were all in quite a bit of danger.

"Also," EDI added, "an enemy ship is in range and has opened fire."

"Perfect."

Running lights flashed crimson in the CIC gangways, and the reserve left on shift twitched in anticipation. Course plotters rambled off data near the galaxy map with Hadley and Matthews, who fumbled at their space warfare consoles, predicting incoming trajectories. The acting comm specialist, Alison Ramirez, sent away a flurry of jamming signals.

She sensed a subtle shift in their actions. Humbleness she had not felt a few days ago. _Normandy_ was no longer untouchable.

When Miranda reachd the bridge, her ears were bombarded with the voices of three different men arguing as heatedly as a set of children in the middle of a schoolyard spat. The most vocal of the trio loomed over the back of the copilot chair, spitting venom at the turian on the monitor. His brows furrowed so deeply, his face just might have stuck that way. If the tiny, resurfacing scars provided any indication.

Each time Garrus spoke or Lieutenant Moreau chimed in, Shepard grew a bit more tense. When EDI offered insight it became evident very quickly that the opposing sides remained severely unbalanced.

A small, biased part of Miranda wants to reach out to Shepard, to defend him. But when she looked into his eyes, she hesitated. Wild, untamed, unnerved. Something unreasonable, but restrained resided within the microscopic hints of crimson in his pupils.

Miranda braced her shoulders and placed her hands on the back of Joker's chair. "Who the hell is shooting at us?"

"XO? Oh, perfect. You're finally here. We could have totally used you three minutes ago," Joker huffed, not once removing his bony fingers from the flight console. "The LC here just blew up a truck."

Shepard's reproving stare darted over his pilot. "Rephrase: a cargo freighter."

Joker's shoulder eased an itch on his neck. "Sure, whatever helps you sleep at night. Either way, pirates really hate when they lose their booty."

On the vid chat Garrus' mandibles twitched, and Miranda could be almost positive Shepard wanted to reap the benefits of a double entendre.

Except the joke never came. Instead he snapped, "Shut up and fly, Joker."

Jeff sighed, "Another opportunity squandered. Hey, remember the time we dropped out of FTL to discharge, and tripped over a Batarian crime syndicate's flag ship? Almost on accident, right? A sitting duck, like it's freaking Christmas morning! Except, they totally saw us first, flagged us as Cerberus, and opened fire. You were all, 'Jinkies! Who cares if everyone goes zap in twelve hours? They shot at us. Let's use this sweet ass Thanix Cannon again!'"

Garrus coughed, head ducked as he eyeballed his craft. "The one I haven't finished recalibrating. Still recharging by the way. I wouldn't recommend giving it another go just yet. Unless you like your turian on the crispy side."

Mirth overwhelmed Jeff's voice to the point he may have burst. "So instead of shooting the main baddies, you decided to hit their en route supply truck!"

"Freighter," Shepard growled, folding his lithe arms across his chest. Knuckles blanched as his fist tightened. "They'll all go a little hungry now."

"Whatever." Joker snorted and swept an array of useless data from his dash. "So here's the plot twist: a shitload of their fighters drop out of FTL, and swarm us! Good times. You remember? Of course you do. It just happened. Now they've got a whole squadron on our ass across each plane."

Sure enough, the LADAR danced with so many red lights, it could have decorated an entire neighborhood on Earth at Christmastime. Pirate fighters may not have withheld the professional training _Normandy_ did, but they were agile and deadly in swarms regardless. Live fire ricocheted off _Normandy's_ shields, and lessened the affect of the inertia dampeners.

Miranda tacked up the light years in her head. "Joker, can you get a clear shot for a jump to Illium? If we go now, we can make it with over an hour to spare."

"Gee, I'd love to, but they're attacking like a bunch of bees, and collisions are bad."

"Not what I asked!" Her knuckles tensed. "Can you get a clean jump?"

"Pff. 'Course I can," he boasted.

"Good. EDI, help Jeff find a route out." Miranda's voice remained fairly even for someone with an abnormally constricted lung. "Drop us into stealth."

"Sure." Irritation stacked in the flight lieutenant's voice, but _Normandy's_ flight patterns evened out with AI assistance. "They could still look out a damn window and see us, though. At least reapers could."

"Windows are a structural weakness," a new voice chimed in. Curious, intelligent, quirky, synthetic. Legion.

Joker's temper no longer kept in check, his jaw twitched. "Someone shut him up!"

As impossible as it is to actually visualize nearly anything in outer space unless in almost direct contact, light was certainly abundant in this solar system. Twin suns gleamed from hundreds of thousands of miles away, casting alight everything in their midst with a stark silhouette at the rear. Halos were the only indication of movement against the otherwise inky background.

"We could technically tear them apart," Shepard murmured suddenly, a pensive expression on his face.

Miranda head whips around so quickly the bridge spun a little. She wanted to ask him if he'd completely lost his mind. Instead she restrained herself, terse as ever. "But you have no intention of further engagement. Correct, Commander?"

A jarred flicker flashed in his eyes at the sole use of his title. They were honey today, the olive nearly an afterthought. He stayed silent.

"Twelve hours, Shepard," Miranda reiterated, slamming the side of her hand into the opposite palm for emphasis. "We don't have the time or dexterity to engage them in a knife fight. _Normandy_ is crippled."

 _You better damn well listen to reason, you insolent, deranged, lovely human being. I thought you were doing better. I thought I helped you fix this._

She knew how unfair that was as soon as she thought it.

"Normandy could technically do it, Miranda." One of Shepard's fists balled into the frazzled auburn mess atop his head, and he pawed at the back of his neck. "She's the quickest ship in the galaxy. We could be in and around them in minute—."

"I'm well aware of _Normandy's_ status quo when she isn't ready to fall apart! We have to go. Don't we, Commander?" Boulders dropped into her gut one by one.

 _Oh, Shepard, what's the matter with you? Please, don't make such a poor judgement call. You are one of the most compassionate, intelligent people in the galaxy, and you're suddenly prepared to jeopardize everything? Don't make your father's mistake. I'll keel haul you!_

An impulse to reach for him overcame her, but they are on deck, in command, and he stiffened away before her reach even suspended. A new sting dug in deeper, but Miranda didn't let the loneliness overcome her expression.

"Shepard . . . ," Garrus began.

"Get us the hell out of this system, Joker," Shepard grumbled. An abundance of color drained from his face and he backed away from the monitor. His skin grew ashen and a shadow passed over his eyes. Suddenly, beneath the physical youth, his eyes—his soul—looked so very old.

And it killed her.

A moment's pause, the air stale and mute. _Normandy_ stilled. In the corner of Miranda's eye, shields stabilized and a berth opened in the front line. This was Normandy's chance. Colors outside the vessel bent in an array of broken lights, and on their way to sanctuary they flew.

A collective sigh of relief rang across the deck the moment they slipped the enemy's reach. Running lights switched back to proper daytime hours lighting, alarms died down. Unsettled and stressed, the crew eased back into routine procedures.

Garrus professed a need for sleep, and switched off the vid monitor. Joker threw Miranda a half-hearted smile before returning to his race against time.

The XO folded her hands behind her back, and relayed instructions to the flight lieutenant to head to Nos Astra before returning her attention to Shepard. Her voice softened, and she offered him a quick salute. "Commander Shepard, I hereby relieve you of your post. I will resume command of _Normandy_ henceforth until we reach port in Nos Astra, or until the time Mr. Vakarian chooses to relieve me."

Shepard copied the gesture, and nodded sadly. "Keep her safe, Miss Lawson."

"Always do," she said. "You get some sleep."

And as she watched him leave his command, as much as she'd tried to suppress every ounce of feeling, her own devastation began to overwhelm her.

Omni-tool actived, Miranda immediately jotted down their previous coordinates, and warred with herself over whether to send them to Admiral Hackett and his task forces and ignore the impulse to reach out to the Illusive Man.

 _I'm not sure whom I trust anymore,_ she thought. _The Illusive Man's willingness to preserve a place so awful and . . . we kept it. All of the horrors and nightmares for humanity is still alive, safe and sound in the center of galaxy. And he's using it to hurt all of those people._

So she pocketed the coordinates for later, and excused herself from the bridge.

The elevator was a much more peaceful place without a constant clatter. On the opposite side of the door, Miranda found herself at the entrance to the captain's loft. After two sets of knocks and a quick scope, she discovered Shepard flat on his back on his side of the bed, an arm draped over his eyes. Concern swelled in the back of her mind when it took him longer than usual to acknowledged her. But with his head tilted back against the pillow, she saw his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed.

With a degree of effort Miranda had quickly developed a profound distaste for, she tossed aside her shoes and slunk onto the bed beside him with a nearly inaudible grunt.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"M'okay," she lied.

"I know I couldn't save them—the slaves onboard that cruiser. You recognized the flag on the monitor, right? Raiders. Bunch of filthy bastards. I've been around long enough to realize those people are just more victims of the universe. But I thought maybe . . . maybe just this once I could, I don't know . . . . I know what they do to them, and it's horrible." He took a shaken breath. "I should have fired at the cruiser instead. Should have killed them. Death would have been merciful."

"How very existentialist of you," she teased.

He snorted. "Do you disagree?"

"Maybe not." Miranda hesitated, and looped his fingers through her bare hand. "But maybe this was meant to be. For all we know, they'll escape or be rescued, and live the lives they want on a refugee world."

Shepard paused thoughtfully. "You don't believe that. Every habitable world is dying."

"With you?" Miranda's brows scrunched into her line of vision. She would normally have bumped his side, but the strain in her chest had grown excessive enough. "Please, anything is possible."

Shepard's lips twitched, and his voice lost the derisive edge. "Would you have believed me to be as stupid as I was on the bridge a little while ago?"

"A couple years ago probably. But in a different way," Miranda agreed. She skimmed her thumb across his knuckles and discovered an awkward lump he should have consulted Dr. Chakwas on, no matter how much they all despised the bone knitter. "You're always so irritatingly compassionate, willing to delay our mission for cats stuck in trees."

But Miranda held no real spite in her voice, only admiration and affection.

"Was I a cat stuck in a tree? You've gone out of your way to help me," Shepard chuckled.

"Yes, well, it's because I want . . . ." She trailed off and he turned for a moment to stare at her.

"And Oriana, and Hackett, Liara, Kasumi, Rolston, those people on Horizon, and Jacob—," he choked and buried his way back into his forearm. "Mordin."

"I want the best for you."

"You're a good person, " he whispered.

When he quieted the air held still for such a long moment, she almost began to think Shepard had fallen asleep when she caught a glint of refracted light slip down his cheek from beneath his arm. Millions of distant stars twinkled down from the viewing windows above them, speckled across endless velvet. Space was so vast and endless, no matter how many threats they purged. And Miranda suddenly felt a little insignificant.

"When they started shooting at us, I just wanted to kill them all. They were trying to hurt the crew . . . my friends. I'm . . . ." Shepard trailed off from his neutral and unyielding voice, and gnawed on his lower lip. "I needed to feel in control. Like I get to pick who lives a good life, and dies a good death. I'm so tired of watching my friends die."

Nausea swept across Miranda, and her mouth tasted like metal. "We're going to lose a lot more friends before this is over."

 _Dammit. He knows that! He's lost people since day one. Just be here._

"I promised I'd do better. I didn't," he drawled. "I'm so sorry, Miranda. I wish I could, but I can't fix him. I can't bring Jacob back. Mordin, Thane, Earth. God dammit."

Miranda's throat closed up, and she shut her eyes tight because all she sensed was Jacob's heartbeat fading beneath her fingertips. The snowflakes he couldn't bat from his lashed. His breaths shallow and fast against her arm, warm against the chill. The smile he granted her when he told her to go get them, that she always made the best promises.

Miranda would remember until the day she died.

With a wheeze, Miranda pulled herself to the edge of the bed and slung her legs over the side. The tiles were just as numb to her feet as she felt inside. The pain—both physical and emotional—would fade in time as things always do. Bones broke and they healed. Life began and it ended.

The tight seated position she worked her way into certainly left her with added bruising. Yet when Shepard ran his hand gently down her spine, Miranda lingered a moment longer, pawing the downturned sheets with a vice.

"I'll send a message to Brynn Cole when we reach port. She deserves to know Ja- he won't be coming home," Miranda drawled. "You rest."

Brynn knew, watched her lover bleed to death, cried silently into the bulkhead of the shuttle. Why then, did Miranda need to tell her?

"I couldn't stop Cerberus, Miranda," Shepard choked. "I shouldn't have let you go to Gellix alone. I should have been there to save them."

"You can't be everywhere. You were busy saving the galaxy. The scientists, Brynn, Jacob—they were my people. My responsibility. I failed them."

"I'm sorry I couldn't stop them. Maybe the Illusive Man was right. Maybe I am short-sighted."

"Miss Lawson," EDI called before Shepard could say anything.

"Yes?"

"Miss Lawson," she repeated. "We need you."

A strange request, but one she believed to understand. "I'll be down in just a moment."

"Miss Lawson."

Not EDI.

"Miss Lawson."

Miranda jostled. A tidal wave of unintelligible noise assaulted her eardrums. She blinked to clear the film coating her eyes, and found herself slumped in a chair, staring up at none other than Chief Reed. Adorned in a medical mask and gloves, a fair amount of fresh stains pooled upon his trunk.

No longer aboard _Normandy_. Perhaps she never had been. Sterile and contagious scents alike flooded her nostrils. Lights flickered. People filled the room and surrounded the bed beside her. And a terrible chirping persisted.

What was that godforsaken sound?

"Miss Lawson," he barked, ushering her to the curtain flap. "We need you to step outside right now!"

Only once she felt the splash of soot and mud beneath her boots did she realized surgical gloves were not made in red.

* * *

There wasn't always someone to kiss away her nightmares.


	3. Chapter 3

**_13 September 2186, London/Earth_**

Rain fell from the sky. Not in the form of insoluble ash and soot, but real, breathable rain which sprinkled across Miranda's forehead and cleansed the dust and dirt from her cheeks.

"Headed out?" At the outpost gates, soldiers on watch shot the breeze, and blinked into the clouded night sky that reflected more urban lights than it had in—most likely—many months. But one managed to throw Miranda a perplexed expression.

"That's right," she barely mumbled, flashing her staff specialist personnel information off her omni-tool with all the enthusiasm of a drone. At least those still worked.

"Careful," the guard warned, waving Miranda through. "We've got some looters on the road tonight. Would you like an escort to your destination?"

"No, I'm only heading up to the forward outpost." It had become an irregular habit—assisting the Alliance—but one Miranda adjusted to for survival. "Not too far."

Evidently, shock and sleep depravation dampens awareness and time perception, regardless of how cognitively apt one is on a normal day. I could compare the feeling to being underwater. Film coats the eyes, a push and pull of a tide distracts from an accurate orientation, no sounds are high enough in pitch to reach the human ear.

Except the clatter of shattering glass.

Miranda's brain started to catch up with the surrounding world not seconds after. Her corona tingled at the ready, and she whipped her head around to see three cloaked humans lumbering out from inside the corner building.

"Hey, what the hell, Namdi?" the only female of the group snapped as she stuffed her hands into the satchel at her hip. "This is someone's property!"

Miranda made no move towards the trio. Instead she lined her back against the alley wall entrance. The decrepit streets between outposts dark, littered with rubble, and not often travelled at this hour. As her eyes adjusted, recognition dawned and she allowed her heart rate to ease ever so slightly. But she rooted her feet, and observed them from her nook just to be certain.

"Really, Seanne?" the Namdi boy laughed with a shrug, scrunching the sleeves of his oversized coat. Biotics simmered down around his collar. "We're out here to scavenge, and you're worried about defacing the property of chemist who's probably dead. Who gives a rat's ass if I break a window or two? Look around you. Every other one on the block is already busted."

Seanne folded her arms across her chest morosely, and the other boy reached for her shoulder with a grin of his own.

"No big deal. Watch," he said, and threw a ball of sapphire matter into the door.

"Reiley," she whined in protest. "We were told to be subtle. What if one of the officers hears us? We could get in a lot of trouble."

 _Told to? How curious. Jack, do you know what your students are doing?_ Miranda thought.

The boys threw their heads back in laughter, dug through their own bags, and cantered off. Their gazes swiveled suspiciously, but in the dark, deafening rain, she managed to tail them at an unnoticed distance.

London was not the city it once was. Miranda was very young the first and only other time she'd set foot in the United Kingdom, so her memories were vague. Where she recalled a clock tower of sweet melodies and perpetual reminders, a single wall of iron silence clutched desperately for freedom against a blackened sky. Where once were old crimson phone booths and men in tall hats and ornamented coats, stood vacant spaces on the scorched pavements where soldiers and children stood and evaporated beneath a Reaper's eye. Rod iron fences twisted and wilt like dying roses. Statues and fountains crumpled amongst the ash. Centuries of history vanished with sweeping scars in place, and centuries from now, there will be those to excavate the remains.

 _If our crippled home world doesn't wind up finishing the Reaper's work first,_ she thought.

Puddles sloshed and flooded the uneven pavement, Miranda was little surprised they hadn't caught wind of her. Until they halted near the only building for miles with lights flashing on the inside, and music which thrummed against the ground in heavy rhythm.

A queue composed of many species—all part of the joint-military campaign—formed before the entrance, guarded by a pair of billowing door monkeys—a massive turian who grunted in approval and a burly asari commando. Each patron carried a package of varying shape and size to be assessed upon entry.

Yet the Bellarmine twins and their friend ducked straight through the entrance.

Before Miranda could even attempt to remove herself from the curb, across the street a lithe figure on a beeline towards caught her eye. She halted a foot inside Miranda's personal bubble, reached out, and shoved her. Not with bruising force to make her stumble, but enough to drive a point.

"Have you finally inhaled too much hairspray?" Jack shouted, her dark eyes just as stormy as the weather and rimmed with sleepless nights, unsavory haircut hidden by the cotton hood of a modest leather jacket.

The corner of Miranda's lip twitched upwards. "Not yet. You're wearing more clothes."

"So are you, you tin-foiled wet dream," she bit back.

Miranda almost wanted to smile. "Fair enough. How long were you sitting on that?"

Jack scowled deeper and tucked her arms across her chest. "Few weeks maybe. But, Jesus Christ! You drop off the fucking map for a good forty-eight hours, and don't have the decency to put out a line? No, 'I haven't been arrested yet because my amnesty is really long term like the brass said. Sorry I won't be in. I'm actually getting liposuction on my already gigantic ass!'?" she mimicked in her best impression of Miranda, tossing her hands daintily in the air.

"Actually . . . ." Miranda shook her head and forgot to correct her friend. "I was at the medical outpost."

Jack's thin brows darted upwards for just a second. "Halfway right then."

"I got caught up," Miranda said, glancing away.

The fire waned in Jack's eyes, and the wrinkles of anger smoothed out across her brow. In an effort at prolonged bravado, she made a disgusted noise, but the bite in her bark was gone. "You and Goto both! Sneaking around with your own little secrets. At least she sends the occasional, 'Sup? Just found a bunch of shiny stuff. Want some earrings?'"

Miranda's eyes widened, and a featherweight lifted from her chest. "Kasumi checked in?"

"Officially," her wiry friend emphasized, "with the rest of the surviving Crucible team. Shocking, I know."

"When?" Miranda wondered, more than a little relieved.

Jack threw the former Cerberus operative an odd look, somewhere between suspicious and doubtful. "Basically right after you disappeared. I figured she'd fake her own death, and steal everything."

"Again," Miranda added. "Give it a couple weeks."

"Yeah, exactly. But, nope. Little sneak-thief is helping out with requisitions. Go figure." The wiry woman pointed a tattooed finger across the street at the only building still alive. "Pretty sure that's her little house of horrors."

"You mean you don't know for certain?"

"Neither do you apparently."

Miranda folded her arms a bit tighter, cocooning herself inside her cloak. She hoped her companion would not take notice. "I've been a little out of the loop."

"Fuckin' weird," Jack whispered, shaking her head.

 _Correct_. Miranda's lack of insight into the present world stood as both a contradiction and a great discomfort to the operative. The blindness left her more anxious than before, more hollow and empty. She breathed out to barricade the dam keeping her inner world at bay.

Rain dispersed, and a cool breeze ran a chill down Miranda's spine. Across the street, the line grew. One of the patrons seemed to be in disagreement with the doormen over the quality of his own tribute.

"So, listen . . . ." Jack trailed off and shuffled her feet in discomfort. She released a low whistle, soundlessly opened and closed her mouth a few more times, scratched behind her neck, grunted decisively, and changed tracks. "If you don't know who—or what—is behind this party palace, why are you out here of all places? Hackett finally letting you unwind?"

The flinch was involuntary. Miranda almost forgot the catalyst of her absence at that point. Her mind far too clouded and preoccupied. "Followed your students. I was out for a walk. The medical outpost . . . gets a little heavy. Reiley, Seanne, and Namdi paid a local pharmacy a visit somewhere near the old hospital. I thought their behavior was a little odd and came straight here. Anyways, well removed from central authority, none of the people in line are high-ranking officers. Definitely a place to hide something."

"Those little shits," she muttered. Jack's expression darkened once more, and she grabbed Miranda's arm. "Come on. I've got a bone to pick with somebody."

"They'll rue the day."

* * *

Miranda had seen Jack upset before, willing to kill others and even herself. But never had she seen her so full of restrained, calm rage. Suffice to say, the little biotic never actually kept Miranda so on her toes. Except perhaps on the battlefield so many nights ago when . . . .

Pain erupted in thorns down Miranda's sides. Her knees longed to buckle. She could hold it, she swore she could hold the barrier, she held it but . . . . She wanted to forget the blood.

Her blood.

Nausea scoured the back of her throat and churned her stomach. Streams of flashing neon and the high arcs of electric music tore into her senses. Just as she felt like losing touch with the world and perhaps vomiting, Jack practically shoved her into the chair beside their hoarding pet dragon.

 _No, no. Not now_ , she told herself, forcing her way back into the conversation with a few deep breaths. Her grip on Kasumi's table turned to iron.

Kasumi cocked her head to the side with a set of quirked brows. She rested her chin atop the flat back of her hands, and leaned forward into the world she rules. Concern set deep in her big, black doe eyes, and she opened her mouth in question; but Miranda shook her head and allowed their enraged accomplice to take center stage.

"I told them to find something useful!" Jack hissed, face a blossoming shade of pink. "I could be making them clear rubble, or put up bulkheads!"

"Ah, come on, Jack," Kasumi insisted. "That sounds about as fun as watching paint dry."

"Also incredibly necessary," Miranda added, shifting through the mental list of to-do's she must have misplaced within the last forty-eight hours. Her tongue felt like sandpaper.

Her kleptomaniacal little friend threw her a surly expression. "How is requisition not 'incredibly necessary?' We're keeping the economy and welfare of the people in check. We've got supplies for military and civilians here."

Miranda snorted. "Which you stole."

Kasumi thrashed her hands about and shook her head. "Compensation is the price of a good time. Drinks are on the house!"

When a waitress wandered by with a complete set of shot glasses, Jack shot out to snatch one. She gave the rim a suspicious sniff and shuddered.

"Holy shit!" she whispered. Murder erupted in her eyes when she pointedly passed the concoction off to Miranda for confirmation. "Is that fucking rubbing alcohol? Were you having my kids steal rubbing alcohol?"

It smelled of death and antiseptic, and clears all of Miranda's senses.

Kasumi grew visibly wounded. "Of course not!" she whined. "It's vodka . . . with maybe a little bit of rubbing alcohol, yeah. I can't confirm or deny. It gets our customers drunk. That's what's important."

"Or it could kill them," Miranda observed with a shrug. "Especially the dextros."

"I'm being careful," Kasumi said. "My people are good. Your kids are safer here than they were under a Reaper, Jack. And, for all intents and purposes, so are my customers. No one's going to get hurt tonight."

In spite of Miranda's better judgment, she couldn't help the slight smile. "Just their pride and pockets? If they can even remember the evening."

Jack folded her arms across her chest, and glanced at the back door her students shuffled in and out of. They had all turned incredibly sheepish upon their teacher's appearance, but quickly grew more comfortable—if a tad weary of their near future. Each carried their weight in gold, and each time they disappeared longer than a few moments their teacher grows more agitated. Her foot taps against the floor, and her fingers drum against her sleeve.

"Probably a good thing. They'll never realize there's no payout."

Kasumi grinned beneath her hood, and gave her data-pad a nonchalant once-over. "Why do you think I'm running your kids all over the place? They're loading the truck."

Jack's knuckles faded to ivory beneath a web of tattoos, but she wordlessly reeled in her temper and glowered back at the crowd with quick, suspicious eyes.

A crowd seduced by mirage of a peaceful ending.

They had no idea this was merely the beginning.

They fell silent as another peasant stepped forward to grovel at his queen's feet—a young batarian mercenary with a freshly healed wound between his two right eyes and a battered white orb crested upon his chest plate. For Kasumi's table, he offered a short, cylindrical piece of metal etched with grooves Miranda couldn't quite understand the purpose of. From her perspective, the thing looked older than all their ages combined.

But Kasumi's mouth drew into a skeptical line as she pawed her toy, rotating the smooth piece in her palms. She did not lift her gaze. "How much do you want for it?"

Her servant shrugged. "Hundred credits?"

"A hundred?" she choked and thumbed through an entire stack of poker chips. "Ridiculous! Take four!"

The peasant flashed a wide reptilian grin, and fleshed out a plethora of thanks. As soon as he slunk out of earshot, Miranda turned on her. "You're inflating the worth of everything they give you! They'll want your head."

"Not this time," Kasumi sang in a singsong voice.

Miranda did a double take. "Sorry?"

"I mean, yeah, he's not actually getting anything for it. And when they realize, they're all going to be kind of irritated. But this little piece of crap right here? It's worth a lot, Miranda," she whispered and passed the giant tin thermos off to a returned Namdi.

There no longer stood a mountain-sized heap of treasure behind them. The trickle of new victims depleted, but the crowd itself grew rowdier with false winnings and a free flow of two-hundred proof liqueur.

"Why?" Miranda asked, still fighting the fluttering in her gut and the growing sense of danger—the anxious idea that she had been away from Shepard for far too long.

 _What if his state has changed?_ she wondered, then shook her head. _No, improbable. Reed would have paged me._

"What does it do?"

"Because it looks as useful as tits on a bull," Jack scoffed.

Miranda's icy eyes rolled. "Very eloquent."

Jack flipped her middle finger upwards, but Kasumi's eyes sparkled with forget.

The little thief bounced. "Purifies the liquid it takes out of the freaking air. It could water a village in the middle of the Sahara!"

"So, it's a moisture harvester?" When Kasumi nodded, Miranda smiled and pointed towards the crowd. "But does your patron know?"

"Nah, hopefully not. We're going to get the hell out of here as soon as possible. Before he comes back for it."

"And where will we go?" she wondered.

"Back to the top." Kasumi passed her the fuzzy data-pad. "That's where my orders came from."

* * *

Though the Batarian never returned for his poorly compensated equipment, a few customers teetered on the edge of sober. They eyeballed Kasumi when her associates began to slip out the backdoor. They filtered into the frosty decrepit alley one-by-one, and were greeted by a bulky polygonal mound about half again the size of an M35 Mako.

Camouflaged velvet strewn across the top—a bandage to pocket gaps in the armor—restrained an antenna and empty turret compartment. No less than forty years old, rust and oil caked parts ash has not yet reached, armor plating clung for dear life, and the treads of the tires begged for rest. An interior meant to house six burst at the seams with treasure.

A salarian with a mottled brown-green complexion leaned heavily against the cockpit door. A cigarillo— _how expensive,_ Miranda noted—hung loosely between his long lips, shoulders shrugged. In spite of his nonchalant posture, his muscles tensed with feline movements, prepared to spring for the firearm at his side at a moment's notice, and his eyes scanned for any unwarranted presence. It took Miranda a few seconds to realize she had seen him before.

The salarian perked up when Kasumi brushed past her horde of followers.

"Senek," she whispered. "We hit our window. Let's get out of here."

With a nod, he lurched the door open and hopped into the driver's cabin. Except, he did not start the engine. Instead Jack's students alit in sapphire, placed themselves on all sides, and pressed into the tanker's hull with gentle telekinetics.

"And we're off like a herd of turtles," mused Reiley under his breath.

"Bunch of fat, slow-ass turtles carrying a thousand fucking kilos," grumbled Namdi.

"Hey, even though you're right, watch your damn mouth," Jack hissed and added in her own raw power.

Namdi grew sheepish and tucked his chin against his chest. "Yes, ma'am. Sorry."

Before they went reeling and passed out from pure shock, Jack turned on her friends. "If Kahlee hears them talking like me, they'll be scrubbing toilets for a week, and it'll be my ass. Which brings me back to you, Goto. Why the fu- Why are we pushing this hunk o' junk?"

"Because I wasn't counting on seven people," retorted Kasumi as if her answer were the most obvious thing in the world. "None of the other tankers out for picking had the interior space I needed for all our winnings. We were just going to fill up and leave. It's only about a mile walk anyways. We can start the engines a couple blocks over. Grizzlies are super noisy, and I'm not big on drawing the attention of the entire . . . supply depot. Besides, Tianna and Urch are still out front. They'll act like they had no idea: angry with the rest of the crowd. We'll meet up with them in the morning."

A small grin tugged at the side of Miranda's mouth. "Tianna and Urch. Your Silver Coast Casino team? I thought I recognized them."

Kasumi grew a wide smile. "And they recognized you. It's how you got in so fast. You looked super hot that night, by the way. Red looks great on you. You should wear it more often."

Red: a beacon in the night that silhouetted the catalyst of Miranda's childhood terror and provided sights on her false refuge, the splattered trail in the snow on Anhur, the star reflected in the eyes of the man she trusted most. Red was the web of human cocoons in the walls of a nightmare, the wail of an ancient god burning all in his wake, a black pool on the floor she could not fix. Red: the ash and dust of a cold, dead planet, anger and desperation.

Red: the sun-speckled laughing cheeks of her sister, new and exhilarating and warm, a chase through the capitol of a sprawling world, the first glimpse of life in her greatest success. Red was normal. Red: the hastily forgotten pile on the floor of what she could call home, a morning of wanderlust, of straw and wild grass and the perfectly ruffled locks of the one Miranda loved most, hope and happiness.

Red: the cleanse in the night sky which eviscerated the blight, the purge of good and evil.

Miranda shook her head angrily and pushed, falling into step at the rear. "I'll keep that in mind."

Tires bumbled across broken pavement, deeper into the backstreet and over heaps of rubble and metal bone. At the mouth of the first boulevard wind nipped her cheeks, iced over her nose and lashes. The inky blanket above offered no warmth, but the exertion of biotics and physical prowess certainly did. Beads of sweat began to collect across her brow.

"Miss Lawson . . . ." Seanne Bellarmine trailed off beside her. Their shoulders brushed, and Miranda started a bit at the contact. Seanne moved in a way to detract any special attention, but her eyes lit with an eerily familiar concern. "I just-. A few days ago you . . . . Will you-? Are you going to be alright?"

"I'm fine, Seanne," Miranda said kindly and immediately threw up a mental dam for incoming memories. She had a task to accomplish. "Don't worry about us. If biotic exertion compels you, perhaps consult your brother and friend. They don't seem to be as up to speed on restraint."

Seanne's grin doubled in width, and dimples appeared upon her cheeks before she scampered off to her brother's side. A quick, 'yes, ma'am,' in her wake.

Then Senek steered them straight over a lump of debris the damn truck could not clear without manual intervention.

Miranda huffed. _Of all the rubbish to survive, Alliance ingenuity comes out on top. Literally._

Jack scoffed from her forward position, seeming to share the sentiment. "Fu-," she bit her tongue, swiveled her chocolate gaze across her busy students, and lowered her voice so only Miranda could hear. "Effing Grizzly! Stole one of these once back when I was pissed off and looking for answers. Got lodged just like this because they have the mobility of a freaking rock!"

Miranda snorted. "At least they have a hard time catching fire."

Kasumi whisked up on the right to offer assistance. Although her slight strength proved less effective in force, her momentum remained more precise than biotics.

"Yeah, I got pretty sick of the Hammerhead sporadically bursting into flame." A sad smile cracked across the silhouette beneath the hood, a trace of restrained sympathy. "It was like Shep never realized there was a big gun attached to the hood."

"Nah," Jack chuckled softly. "Just like me: liked to hit stuff. Probably a biotic thing. Ramming into flashlights was like recess."

"Except now they're all dead," muttered Miranda without thought.

Her companions suddenly looked like they had been slapped across the face. Their jaws dangled. The pair halted, and the teenagers slunk slowly onwards, leaving their supervisors to their own devices at a safe distance. Jack's corona broke for just a moment, and her brows skyrocketed upwards.

"Oh, Miranda," Kasumi breathed and reached for her friend.

"I meant the geth," she snapped. Pulling back, her biotics flared in cool fire.

She hated how they referred to Shepard in the past tense; how they spoke around her presence in circles like the topic had no affect on her. Like her ears didn't ring from the pounding of her boiling blood or her heart didn't thrum so hard it might have leapt from her chest; how they pretended the world was somehow happier because . . . . Because they didn't know she'd omitted reality.

Miranda's actions were harsher than they deserved. She knew that. Nausea took a grip upon her spinning world. So she breathed in and softened her voice. "I meant the geth."

Jack blinked. "What do you mean, 'I meant the geth'?"

"What do you think she meant? The geth freaking collapsed," Kasumi chirped and narrowed the ball of her foot at a pile of debris Miranda had come to realize was mostly composed of charred metal limbs and broken flashlights.

She really thought she was going to be sick, but she set her jaw and furrowed her brow.

"The cheerleader never says a damn thing by mistake." Jack barreled into Miranda's personal space, and absolutely withered. "Where. Have. You. Been. Miranda?"

Miranda's cheeks began to boil, and she took another long breath. On the one hand, Jack apparently smelled infinitely better than she did after her stay in Purgatory and no longer reeked of delinquent. And on the other, well, she had no answer to suffice.

"Hey," urged Kasumi. Her feet crunched up closer, halted evenly, and tensed. "Want to back off a bit? Cut her some slack? A pardon isn't exactly free. I'm sure the Alliance has her running around doing stuff she hasn't been able to talk about."

"She's fucking cleared!" Jack broke her glower for only a moment. The edges of her shimmering dark eyes began to exude puffiness. "At least for now. The Alliance needs any highly capable destitute they can snatch, so they aren't gonna slap any cuffs on her any time soon."

 _Destitute?_ A further sinking in Miranda's core.

"She was with me at the end, started helping Kahlee, and then she fucking disappeared! Gone. No mention, just fucking gone. Pops back up from-," Jack's voice broke as she reeled. And god, Miranda never thought she would ever feel so wrong witnessing the anger in the stains skirting down her cheeks. "Why were you at the medical center, huh? Were you really volunteering or . . . is that giant asshole boyfriend of yours . . . . Is Shepard alive? And if he is, why the fuck aren't you there?"

"Kahlee insisted I get . . . ." Miranda turned her sights from both of them as the rain began anew. "I get the chance to say goodbye. Just in case."

After a long moment, Jack snarled, "Fuck that!"

"She didn't want to share the guilt," Miranda muttered. Her gaze lowered softly and she trailed a strong hand across her middle. "He refused."


End file.
